Splotches jersey dress (Vogue 1285)

A new dress! I made this dress to try out sewing with the Babylock. The pattern is Vogue 1285 by Tracy Reese, one of the Vogue new spring collection. From the envelope: “Lined, mock wrap dress has collar, close-fitting bodice with bands/hook&eye, fitted skirt, overlay with mock band, belt loops, sleeve bands and invisible left side zipper. Darts are stitched on the right side of fabric. Lining forms attached slip with shoulder and lingerie straps.”

The fabric is polyester jersey from my stash. It has green and brown splotches pattern with golden threads weft in between. Unfortunately the camera doesn’t seem to catch the golden thread. The fabric is not double-knit, so I hesitated to use my sewing machine to sew it. Now that I have a serger, the fabric is perfect for a try-out!

My pattern alteration as usual:

shortened the bodice 3 cm.

swayback alteration

shortened the skirt and sleeves

Now for the fun part: sewing the dress! I used my Janome sewing machine the sew the darts, collar, and zipper, the rest were made with the Babylock.

The band

The darts on the original pattern are actually on the right side, I made them on the inside the usual way. I also skipped the lining slip for the dress as my fabric is not that transparent.

I didn’t follow the instructions for attaching the band, which calls for turning the inside seam allowance under and edgestitching it. Instead, I sewed the bands to the bodice and used coverstitch to topstitch them from the right side. I think it look neat! The sleeve cuffs were also attached in similar fashion.

I also used the coverstitch functions to make belt loops. The shoulders are reinforced with a strip of cotton twill so they don’t stretch.

I think wrap dress (or mock wrap dress in this case) always looks flattering for all body shapes. And since the skirt part is not really a wrap, I don’t have to worry about accidentally flashing my thighs!

I have this planning so thanks for posting this review, I’ll leave out the zipper too and used locker as much as possible!

Olivia

Did you use a two-way stretch fabric, like the pattern suggests? I’m really having trouble finding one and was kind of thinking of winging it with a normal stretch jersey…just curious what you decided to do!